Slackware, Kernel 2.6.13, KDE 3.4

when I'm done or want to reboot I logout of KDE and if I'm logged in as "alex" and I can't type halt or reboot. it gives me "-bash: halt: command not found".

I have to be su just to halt.

not the end of the world but annoying as I am setting up my system still and am rebooting often.

If you know how to add a path to your environment variable, add /sbin to your path and you can type "halt" at the terminal.

Otherwise

Try using this command:
/sbin/halt

But I guess that a normal user account does not have the previledge to execute "halt", so you should use the LOGOUT botton in the KDE's main menu.

I think I was miss understood here. I do logout of KDE from the main menu and it get's me to the black screen where I had to type "startx" to load KDE. when I logout of KDE I am still logged in as Alex, my regular user.

I need to know how to get my normal account the privliges to be able to halt or reboot.

Use sudo
(apt-get install sudo, and read the sudo manual)

Quote~Use sudo
(apt-get install sudo, and read the sudo manual)~Quote

now I'm really confused.
I understood absolutly nothing of that post.

See... this is the trouble with us newbies. It isn't just we don't know the answers... we don't even know the questions! Then someone gives a reply like this and we walk away, shaking our heads, and re-boot into Windoze...

Apt is a package management tool that will handle installing software. It handles dependency issues where the package you're loading has other packages as prerequisites.
See http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap.../index.en.html

sudo (superuser-do) is a terminal command that allows priviledged users to run commands as if they were root. In your case "sudo halt" or "sudo reboot", if you've added yourself to the sudo user group.
See www.courtesan.com/sudo/intro.html.

From another (perhaps not so) newbie...

Timothy.

Give me the results on your machine with this command:

echo $PATH

alex@Alex:~$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/opt/www/htdig/bin:/usr/lib/java/bin:/usr/lib/java/jre/bin:/opt/kde/bin:/usr/lib/qt/bin:/usr/share/texmf/bin:.

In Fedora Core and RHEL there is a "halt" under /usr/bin directory which can be invoked directly with your "alex" user account, this is something much alike the one using "sudo" -- it uses "userhelper"(which is used to run a superuser command with normal account) -- I don't know whether slackware has this command. But I guess there must be a superuser's "halt" under /sbin.
I'm not familiar with KDE. Anyway, in Gnome's main menu, when invoke the Log Out button, you get some options like "Log out", "Reboot", "Shutdown", choose "Reboot" will take you directly rebooting your machine and not the text terminal which you typed "startx". I have experimented this with my machine.
If KDE has not the Log Out menu button, then you have to do with the "sudo" way (because it is probably that you don't have userhelper installed, and sudo is much more popuplar -- I guess).

somebody once mentioned a file called shutdown.allow that you can put somwhere to use halt (which is rewaly a symlink for shutdown -h now)
or any otehr shutdown command such as -r
if anyone knwo this i am looking to doi this too!

Found it!

this thread (started by me a while back) gives details